Archive of ‘fruit’ category

Yesterday (Friday) was a hectic day! Bobby and I drove into the city to drop off a bunch of stuff at our apartment (we’re moving in this weekend), got a parking ticket ($95 – wtf), picked up Bobby’s new suits (they’re beautiful – Michael Kors), ate out twice, I got a mani cure, and we both got ready for my friend’s wedding today (Saturday).

We did the lunch special at Edo Sushi. I got chicken and broccoli again ($5.75; steamed) and Bobby got Salmon Don ($12). These are Droid pictures. The special comes with soup (miso for me)…

And then you get your entree. Mine came with rice on the side but I saved it to make fried rice later.

Edo’s is my favorite Pennington restaurant.

Dinner was at a new place called Pho 99; it’s Vietnamese. It’s up on Route 27 past Princeton. I opted for the papaya salad with shrimp (my usual). It comes with peanuts and a nice Vietnamese dressing. I also add hoisin sauce.

It was actually quite average and much smaller than I’m used to. Bobby offered to share his very large bowl of pho with me (beef noodle soup) and I happily obliged.

The pho was delicious. The broth was really good; so was the beef; the noodles were just average though. I’m like Heather; I don’t have beef often, but sometimes it just hits the spot. This was super lean and thinly sliced.

I have to go get dressed and ready for the wedding (it’s at 2:30pm)… after the reception we’ll do some more moving or wait until tomorrow.

Holding myself accountable – I have not gotten in a good workout this week or last week at all. I want to get back on track with that. I haven’t even been able to do my standard walking or yoga. I’m writing this here for answerability. Maybe I’ll try to get a walk in before the wedding. I have also been eating grapes by the pound, and I need to stop for the sake of my skin, tummy, and wallet (grapes are expensive; they make me bloat; I just had a facial – I don’t want to ruin it). The facialist said to cut back on sugar and I want to listen to her (I know she’s right).

Bobby’s cousins are so sweet. I’m going to miss them a lot. On our last night in California (Monday, November 9th) we went out together to Blue Mango (our favorite restaurant) in Santa Clara. Blue Mango is a Thai restaurant and they have a separate vegetarian menu (I haven’t used it in a while). We shared a bunch of dishes…

Appetizer: Heavenly Stuffed Wings – de-boned chicken wings stuffed with ground chicken, silver noodle, cilantro, water chestnut and black mushroom. They came with this great sweet dipping sauce. This was kind of scary at first (fried! processed! breaded!) but the deliciousness made up for it.

After dinner we went out for dessert (frozen yogurt) at Golden Spoon – pumpkin pie and chocolate flavors. The toppings were raspberries, mango (not ripe, unfortunately), and crushed brownie bits.

Blue Mango never disappoints. And neither does Golden Spoon. If you ever get a chance, go there! (I’m talking about the Blue Mango on Stevens Creek – I hear the other one is not so good.)

Now that I’m in NJ I don’t have Blue Mango. But I do have Edo Sushi! Bobby, Julia, and I all went out for dinner tonight. I love this place. Edo Sushi is a Japanese and Chinese restaurant on Route 31 in the same shopping center as Pennington Market. It’s about a 10 minute walk from my parents’ house.

First is the tea… (unlimited and free – my two favorite qualities). Notice my cool NY key chain – it’s kind of vintage because it has the twin towers on it. I think I got it back in middle school.

I got chicken and broccoli with the sauce on the side (brown sauce).

The other pictures didn’t come out, but Julia got veggies and tofu with the sauce on the side (also brown sauce). Bobby got the Dragon vs. Phoenix – chicken, shrimp, and veggies stir-fried with yet another brown sauce. He also got a big pot of rice.

We finished everything. The check came with pineapple cubes and fortune cookies. Yum! I love Edo’s.

This dinner was nice after my indulgent afternoon… My parents gave me a massage + facial combo for my birthday and I finally used it. I went to Sydney Albert Salon Spa in Princeton. I’d highly recommend this place – I’ve been going there for years and I’ve always loved everything. Their haircuts are amazing, the facials are fantastic, and the massage was wonderful. Bobby also got a massage and he loved it.

While we were getting pampered, our Relocube arrived. Now we have to unpack it. I’m going into the city tomorrow, but when I get home I think we’re going to try to start sorting through all of our stuff. It’ll be a big project.

Driving in a car with 2 cats is not always fun. But I still love our little monsters.

Arizona is too cool for daylight saving time.

McDonald’s is gross.

Dairy Queen is pretty cool.

Things always take longer than you planned.

Breakfast – a few warren pears from Frog Hollow Farms (samples from this weekend). They’re almost too ripe at this point, so I wanted to use them up.

Snacks throughout the day – more pears.

Lunch – Southwest chicken salad from McDonald’s. Not very good! I am not a McDonald’s fan. There are many other better fast food salads out there. I also snagged some of Bobby’s fries. They were gross.

1st Dinner (7pm) – a side salad and a grilled chicken ranch wrap from Dairy Queen. This wrap was fantastic – yummy cheddar, creamy ranch, and a nice piece of grilled chicken on a tortilla.

2nd Dinner (11pm) – a shared grand slam with Bobby from Denny’s. We got hash browns, eggs sunny side up, hearty whole wheat pancakes, a biscuit, and turkey bacon. Both the bacon and the pancakes were “healthier” options on the menu. Bobby had all of the hash browns. I had most of the pancakes, some of the biscuit, some eggs, and 1 of the bacons. I heart Denny’s.

We are staying at a Motel 6 in Kingman, AZ. Anyone ever been there? I think we might get Denny’s for breakfast tomorrow, too… I plan on keeping it a little lighter (probably just a huge bowl of oats).

Off to get some rest and get ready for more driving tomorrow… I’m gonna try to get a massage out of Bobby. Happy Tuesday!

You all know how much I heart Foodbuzz. Now look at all these awesome samples that I heart as well (from the afternoon tasting). I can’t possibly post everything I tried, but here are the pictures that came out well.

A few of my favorite bloggers have recently committed to getting back on track. Caitlin declared the whole month of November as a time to get back on track; Angela is doing it for the first week of November, starting today (the 2nd). I’m feeling it too: I haven’t been doing that much yoga, I haven’t been walking as much as I like to, and, to be perfectly honest, I’ve been eating a lot of crap. I haven’t been practicing mindfulness either, and I find myself munching through the day instead of eating proper meals.

This challenge might be hard for a few reasons – 1) Bobby and I are driving across the country next week; 2) the holidays and lots of decadent foods are coming up; 3) due to the move, I don’t know what my new routine will be (we’re moving to Manhattan btw). But I’m going to try. I’m synthesizing their goals and mine, and this is what I came up with. I’m going to try to do this for as long as I can. These aren’t arbitrary; these goals are what my ideal lifestyle would be so I want to keep up with them.

Go to bed early (by 11:30pm) and get 7-8 hours of sleep a night.

Cut out artificial sweeteners. I’ve been on a diet coke kick recently and it’s time to stop.

Give myself credit. Even if I don’t do all of these things perfectly, I’m going to give myself credit for the attempts and partial successes.

Because we’re moving, I’m trying to use up the groceries we have and I don’t plan on buying more. This week I’ll be eating out a lot but I’m not too worried about that; I love eating out and I can always find something healthy on the menu. The only thing that worries me about eating out is the money issue. I wish I was less frugal

The other issue I might have is that this weekend is the Foodbuzz Blogger Festival. I plan on eating well, but I doubt that I’m going to get much sleep because two of my favoritebloggers are coming to stay with me and we’re all going together. I am so excited to meet them.

Some of the yummy dishes I plan on making and eating during this November challenge are…

… and lots more. You should check out my recipes page for more inspiration. This bread recipe was one of the first things I ever posted (December 2007).

Anyway, back to the “back on track” plan. Today has been a good day so far. I did a yoga class this morning at my studio and I went to bed early last night (crashed on the couch at 9:30pm). I wanted to go to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner, but Bobby has band practice… so maybe not.

And now this post is getting epic. Happy November! Are you challenging yourself this month?

This is the other recipe that Jill and I got to try at the raw foods demo at Whole Foods. It was served with raw flax crackers (yum). You just need a good blender to make it (which I don’t have, but I will try with my food processor). The recipe is raw, vegan, and vegetarian.

Raw Zucchini Hummus

Ingredients

2 zucchini

3/4 cup tahini (raw)

1/2 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup olive oil (cold pressed, if you want it to be truly raw)

4 cloves garlic

2.5 teaspoons salt (I would cut down on this)

1/2 tablespoon cumin

Directions

Chop the zucchini and blend everything in the blender. Add the lemon juice and garlic (and salt) a little bit at a time to get the flavor that you want.

I thought this was really yummy. I might use a little less garlic and salt. I few other substitution ideas might be…

nut butter instead of tahini (like a yummy Thai peanut sauce)

experiment with other oils – sesame oil would give it a nice Asian flavor

add some Bragg’s liquid aminos (cut out salt, cut down on lemon juice)

Of course you could do beans instead of the tahini, but then it would be a more standard hummus.

What’s your favorite hummus? I really like Tribe’s Olive Hummus. So good. I know Sabra is a popular one as well. I love putting hummus on crispy fruit like apples. I don’t know if that’s common or not…

Today we went up to Sacramento (California’s capital). We visited the capital building, which was really cool. We’re pretty sure Arnold was in his office; there was an armed guard and lots of important-looking people going in and out. We tried to wait around to see if we’d catch a glimpse of him, but no luck.

After the capital building we got lunch at a local diner-ey place. It was called Pancake Circus. It was on a top 50 list of things to do in Sacramento. I love diner food, so I’m really glad we went.

My camera managed to eat the one picture I got of my awesome meal – a belgian pancake topped with tons of whipped cream and a large fruit salad. So freakin’ good.

I’m in the middle of introducing my dad to 30 Rock. Love this show. By the way, he liked Food, Inc. a lot. He already eats mostly vegetarian (because of my siblings) and healthy foods, so it didn’t shock him too much.

Today we went up to Sausalito to be touristy. Bobby got this really good free-range, organic turkey burger from a place called Hamburgers. Apparently it’s Britney Spears’ favorite burger place (?).

I don’t know if these fries were organic, but they certainly were delicious (especially with oodles of ketchup).

Dad and I posed with a bird by the bay.

I opted for vanilla ice cream from Lappert’s. Honestly? Not that great. It was $3.60 for this little cup and it was not worth it. It was boring and I’ve had much better.

Dinner was more interesting. After we got home we went out to Roll House, a cheap and local Korean restaurant. We started off with side dishes (2 kimchis, a mayo waldorf salad thing, pickled daikon, and a fish cake dish that was super yum). Got seconds of some of these.

My dinner was Bi Bim Bap – fried egg, seaweed, cucumber, carrots, spinach, mushrooms, and some other things. I topped it with lots of red spicy sauce (love). When I lifted up the egg to mix it, I found a surprise – beef. Eek. I took it off and gave it to Bobby. I don’t like to send things back. I’m pretty sure I didn’t get it all off though. My meal also came with miso soup (upper right).

Bobby and my dad were full after dinner, but I had to get frozen yogurt to make up for my ice cream disappointment. Bobby did end up helping me a bit with this.

Quick summary of our day: This morning my midterm went fine; I think my bowl of protein powder oats gave me some good brain power. We didn’t really do anything else terribly exciting today because I had to show our apartment at 1pm. We got Chipotle for lunch (Dad’s first time) – I got a veggie salad, Dad got a chicken bowl, and Bobby got a chicken burrito. After the showing we headed to Santana Row, an upscale shopping area in San Jose.

Sorry in advance for the crappy pictures – left my sweet camera at home and used the small one.

Tonight we went out for dinner with out cousins. We got Vietnamese at Pho Nam in Sunnyvale. This place is great. I got #52, the Vermicelli with Shrimp. It came with veggies (lettuce, cilantro, carrots, cucumber), vermicelli (rice noodles), grilled shrimp (with oil), and a yummy fish sauce topping. We got (unpictured) spring rolls (fried and fresh) for the table as well.

I thought this meal was fab – fresh, light, and pretty healthy. Dad got pork and shrimp vermicelli (similar to mine) and Bobby got beef pho (noodle soup). Bobby also got a strawberry shake – I thought it was pretty so I snapped a picture (and had some of course).

Dessert was lots of fresh pineapple from Safeway (Thanks, Dad!).

Just a reminder – I don’t post about everything I eat; don’t think this was everything I ate today

I have been eating this awesome smoked mozzarella cheese on apples. I’ll try to remember to take a picture next time I have it. And I still have to share that crazy chocolate treat that I got recently too.